About FrugalTravelGuy

FrugalTravelGuy’s mission is to help regular folks like you see the world at prices you can afford. The blog was founded by Rick Ingersoll in 2007 to educate readers about the value of frequent flyer miles and points. The FTG team has since traveled the world extensively in first and business class for minimal out-of-pocket cost. By leveraging rewards credit cards, we’ve shown thousands of readers how to do the same.

If you’re new to the world of points and miles, check out our Rookie Tips and FAQpage. To learn more about whether rewards credit cards are right for you, fill out a brief questionnaire to get a free consultation. Check back daily or subscribe for tips on how you can travel better for less.

RICK INGERSOLL, Founder

Rick Ingersoll is an expert on frugal travel, flying free and the author of The Frugal Travel Guy Handbook. A retired mortgage banker, he resides on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. To enjoy his retirement, he and his wife Katy have traveled the globe, rarely paying full price – if anything at all — for their travel and lodging expenses. Rick became an expert in rooting out deals others miss or simply don’t know about, and in accumulating airline frequent flier miles and hotel points. He and Katy have been on two “Around the World” itineraries in either Business or First Class, using free frequent flier miles, points, or vouchers. They have taken many other trips (Hawaii is their favorite), always flying up-front for comfort and convenience. They have been to more than 70 countries. And they went for a five-year period traveling the world without paying for any airline tickets.

Rick’s expertise includes frequent flier mile programs, getting the “bump”, customer service requests, and using good credit ratings to take advantage of bank promotions. He has collected over six million frequent flier miles and has a current “bankroll” of over 2 million frequent flier miles and points. He shares his expertise in his book, The Frugal Travel Guy Handbook, while occasionally still contributing to frugaltravelguy.com and through speaking engagements and seminars around the U.S.

“I just decided to start spreading the word,” Rick told Cymbre Foster of the Traverse City Record-Eagle in March of 2008. “My true intent is to teach people how to do this themselves. There is nothing more fun than taking someone somewhere they have never been before for a price they can’t believe.”

Nowadays, in addition to contributing to the blog occasionally, Rick is playing part time on the World Series of Poker circuit, enjoying his family, friends and grand kids and supporting charitable causes related to feeding hungry American children and supporting our Wounded Warriors.

Ariana has been writing about points, miles and travel since 2012. Ariana is fully engaged in travel hacking and enjoys helping others navigate this hobby. With over 1.5 million miles saved up, she looks forward to traveling to unconventional places and sharing her experience with readers. Prior to joining the team, she wrote and published her own points and miles blog, Pointchaser.com. You can follow Ariana on Twitter or connect with her on Google+.

HOWIE RAPPAPORT, Featured Contributor

Once a geek always a geek. Howie Rappaport has always had a knack for getting a good deal. His passions are technology and travel; two things he gets to play with every day. Originally from New York and then Massachusetts Howie and his wife moved just across the river from Frugal Travel Guy headquarters in Savannah, Georgia in 2010. Working in software sales and living 550 miles from his office, when he’s not working from home Howie is either at the office or visiting a customer. His co-workers and family think he’s “crazy” with his travel habits. They just don’t understand why someone would fly from Savannah to San Francisco through New York!

An addicted “minty” and other deal hunter Howie takes things to the extreme. His favorite places to shop are Costco, Sam’s Club, and Amazon (who doesn’t love unlimited free 2-day shipping). He’s been known to say “Why buy one for one dollar when I can get two for two dollars”, and has a curious fascination with the TLC show “Extreme Couponing”.

Howie gives us his point of view as a knowledgeable road warrior that spends a lot of his time away from home. If you ever see him on a plane he’ll most likely be seated in an aisle with his laptop on and connected to the inflight Wi-Fi. Travelling over 100,000 miles and 100+ nights in hotels each year for work, Howie will give the road warriors some insight to how someone else does it, and show us how principles on travel work for whether you travel 1000 miles a year to visit family you don’t see enough or that 50,000 to travel the world. Additionally he’ll give us some tips to hopefully make travel a little less stressful. All that travel equates to some great benefits that he can thankfully share with his family. “I get to travel to places I’d never be able to go to, and to be able to give that opportunity to my family at a price that everyone can afford makes it all worth it”, Howie says when talking about his travel habits. He goes on to say “There’s nothing quite like the look on your mothers face when she turns left towards first class for a 10-hour flight, it’s all about family”.

CHRISTINE KRZYSZTON, Featured Contributor

Christine Krzyszton lives in Northern Michigan and has been writing about her weekend adventures for over five years for weekly newsletters, a baby boomer blog and a regional men’s magazine. She is the author of How to see the World in a Weekend, available in print and KINDLE on Amazon.com. Christine currently has top status with three major airlines (AA, UA, and DL) and is working on a fourth (A3).

HOLLY JOHNSON, Featured Contributor

Holly Johnson is a wife, mother of two and frugal lifestyle enthusiast. On top of writing and running her own blog, Club Thrifty, she is a freelance writer for a variety of publications. Many would describe her as an nonstop workaholic who is obsessed with getting the most out of her money, her work and her life. Holly’s hobbies include blogging about money, theater, movies and traveling with her young family. Follow Holly Johnson on Google Plus.

MIGUEL QUINONES, Featured Contributor

A lawyer by trade, Miguel is the Founder and President of PMM Travel Consulting, which offers a vast array of travel planning, award booking, and points and miles credit card assessment services. Thanks mainly to points and miles earned through credit cards, Miguel has been fortunate to travel to over fifty countries in six different continents on many of the world’s best airlines and cabins. In addition to English, Miguel is fluent in Spanish.

28 Responses to “About FrugalTravelGuy”

July 03, 2012 at 4:05 pm, Staci said:

Rick
I have had nothing but problems with Amex
I applied for your offer on Feb 29 for 75k bonus miles for 10k spend
I have been refused by Amex and they tell me that to get the 75k offer, they must have contacted me forst.
It i svery misleading of you to put all these offers as an “affiliate” and then not have Amex honor these.
Staci

Hi – I read quickly through the FAQs, but I’m not sure of the answer – what is the best way to get early alert of the amazing credit card offers? Specifically, I would have LOVED the BA 100k offer but it’s already over. Thank you!

Hi Rick
Are you aware of any credit cards that will recognize private aviation as travel and therefore provide benefits/perks for these? I’m in the process of obtaining my pilot’s license, which is of course an around a 8k dollar ordeal. It would be nice to put that money to good use… I suppose there is always clearing high sign up spends but would be nice to double dip. The company bills the credit card under the name ### Air; ### Flight Training. Thanks for any suggestions you might have

My question is for Shannon (or Rick?). I frequent your blog (daily) and noticed that Shannon mentioned flying out of Columbia, SC. I live in Lexington, SC so we fly out of Columbia also. I didn’t take advantage of the BA credit card deal because i was confused about redeeming the miles on short haul trips on AA. I didn’t know if I would be able to redeem the miles easily. I mostly collect Delta, AA, United, USAir, and Membership Reward miles. Do you collect BA miles and do you find them easy to use? Any other tips flying out of Columbia? So glad to find ya! Thanks!

Hi Rick,
May I ask your opinion? Do you think it’s worth it to pay the $95 to renew Southwest cc and earn 6,000 points since I don’t use the card? I have used SW points to travel but I could take another trip for free with the points I have w/o those 6,000 – though if i have them I’d use them probably.
I see Delta charges $210 for 6,000 of their points to buy. Is SW a good deal for the $95 renewal??
may I have your opinion? Thank you so much!!!

It really depends on if you’ll use them. Look at what your tickets cost in points and if the rate makes sense go for it. I don’t live in a southwest city so its tough to judge, but from what others have said it works out to be an ok rate if you’ll use the points.

Hi Rick. Love your site. New at this! Any tips on how to get miles for an upcoming trip to Ecuador? I have a card that offers miles, but I don’t think very much. Is using Kayak.com bad for miles vs going direct to the airlines?

Missy – Kayak.com is a great site to search through and you’ll earn miles if you click through their links when you book as far as I can tell. Use that points earning card and get a great deal on a flight with Kayak’s help. -Howie

Nick, shoot me an email – rick@frugaltravelguy.com to discuss your situation. Its possible that you could use your credit cards to get points here, but you might also have to deal with fees that would negate a significant portion of the value of the points. Rick

Hi FTG! Hope you are well! Love your site. Question for you. I am a complete ROOKIE, and have a question not answered by your FAQs. What program should I sign up for (AA or United) if I can only get one or two credit cards? If I have an account with a site like Rocketmiles, and can only get points to go to one loyalty program (again, either AA or United), which should I choose in your opinion?

Thank you for the kind words, J’nai. The program you choose depends on where you’d like to travel and in what class (economy, business, first). For example, if you want to travel to Europe during the off-season, the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select card (40k point sign-up bonus) gives you a 10% point discount, so a roundtrip economy ticket costs just 36,000 miles. However, American points can be hard to redeem.

If you’re looking for easy redemptions and high credit card sign-up bonuses, United is a good way to go. Although point requirements are higher (there are no off-season discounted flights to Europe), they have a great award search tool that makes it easy to book your award, and there are more ways to earn points with credit cards. Chase has several cards with generous sign-up bonuses: The Ink Bold (55k points after $5k spent within 3 months), the Sapphire Preferred (43k after $3k spent within 3 months), or the United Explorer card (31k after $1k spent within 3 months).

Points from the Ink and Sapphire cards can be transferred at a 1:1 ratio. So you have more generous sign-up bonuses if you go with United. If you want a more detailed consultation about which cards to get, fill out this brief questionnaire: http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/start-here

This was beyond helpful and incredibly clear. Thank you so very much for your VERY prompt and thorough response. I know exactly what I need to do now, and which cards I should use. You are a wealth of knowledge and such a fab dude. I cant wait to share my new travel adventures with you when everything falls into place!

I saw you guys did a previous post awhile back about the Starwood Ambassador program. Trying to see if anyone had any experience with the Ambassador securing travel or outdoor gear rentals for them. Similar to what the Westin is doing with their fitness rentals. Traveling with a toddler and needed pack n play or needing to stay in shape so requested a bike rental.

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Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content on this page is not provided by any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are author's alone, not those of the bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.